Monthly Archives: May 2016

Summary

An extremely simple new way to setup Raspberry Pi Zero as a USB virtual network gadget, allowing SSH, SFTP, VNC etc over a single USB cable. All without need of a keyboard, mouse, screen etc to setup!
To make it clear though, this can only work with the Raspberry Pi Zero.

Quick history lesson

So back over Christmas 2015, I had worked on getting the Raspberry Pi Zero OTG/Slave USB mode working and documented. My work was based off the excelent work done by awesome volunteers from the Raspberry Pi community here and here.
Back then, it required you have a screen, keyboard, mouse and internet connection to set everything up from a stock Raspbian image. This was a bit of a pain if all you had was your normal Windows/Mac/Linux computer with downloaded Raspbian, an SD card, Pi Zero and a USB cable.

Then, with the 2016-05-10 release of Raspbian, the required modules and kernel version were included on the stock Raspbian images, but they still required configuring. At least all this could be done with a screen and keyboard plugged into the Pi Zero (no internet required).

Now, after a heck of a lot of Linux Kernel documentation digging/hunting around, I have stumbled across what seems to be a very little known kernel cmdline parameter. This parameter allows us to do all the configuration on the /boot partition, which is formatted FAT32 and readable on Windows/Mac/Linux (vs normal root partition only being readable with Linux).

What does this mean?

You can now set up a virtual network connection between your Raspberry Pi Zero and normal PC using a single USB cable in a matter of seconds, without the need for any extra hardware!
No need for an HDMI screen, keyboard, mouse etc, all with stock Raspbian Jessie lite or full.
You can then SSH into the Raspberry Pi Zero, copy files with SFTP or use VNC (extra installation required).

How do I set it up?

Setup is super simple! Once you have flashed your Raspbian image, should take only a few minutes to set it up! See guide below.